The Client
One of Switzerland’s largest private Banks, with operations in
major European cities, including London, Amsterdam and Geneva.
Project Summary
Managing the relocation of key IT systems of one of Switzerland’s largest
private Banks between European capital cities while seamlessly maintaining
24/7 banking IT operations without interruption to the bank’s staff or
customers..

The Challenge
The Bank had decided to transfer key IT systems from its London office to
Amsterdam. The systems were those concerned with Portfolio Management and it
was of crucial importance that they continued to provide 100 per cent
availability, without interruption of service to portfolio managers. The
IT systems had to be moved in their entirety -- hardware, software,
applications, third party packages and networking equipment.

A further requirement was that the Bank’s IT systems had not merely to
maintain normal levels of service during the move, but had also to continue to
be developed in line with the Bank’s strategic IT development programs.
Moreover, no additional staff were available during the period of the move,
which had to be accomplished using existing personnel only.

During the course of the project, the Bank decided for corporate
operational reasons to transfer the IT systems again, from Amsterdam to its
Geneva headquarters. Hardware, software, applications and networks had thus to
be moved not once but twice between capital cities.

Fintecs Solution
On behalf of the Bank, Fintecs project managed the entire movement of IT
systems from London to Amsterdam and from Amsterdam to Geneva.

According to Tony Gratton of Fintecs, who managed the team responsible for
the move, ‘When we took on the project, the first thing we needed to
understand was how the Bank’s systems worked and how they interacted with
each other. One specially tricky thing about the project was that it was a
true system project in every sense, in that it involved applications software,
third party packages, hardware, networks -- the whole lot had to be uprooted
and moved, yet without interrupting service.’

To keep track of the immensely complex task, Fintecs employed its Visual
Documentation technique to provide a series of graphical maps showing every
element of the system and how they interact.

Says Tony Gratton, ‘Our visual document was oriented as a map of the
systems but we also used it to manage the project move. We produced a new
edition of the map every couple of weeks when things were moving quickly. More
recently we have completed a second version of the map to show how the
evolution of the Bank’s software will work.’

‘An important part of the project was our analysis of the whole system
and partly as a result of that analysis a new strategy has been defined for
future development. We didn’t just move the old system, we also put in place
evolutionary development of existing systems to cater for the bank’s future
needs.’

‘The new development primarily involves legacy system replacement as
there are a number of older systems that are fast becoming unmaintainable and
are currently being rationalised, and cleaned up or replaced entirely with
more modern systems. These developments also had to be factored into our
relocation plans.’

The project involved a team of up to a dozen IT staff, project managed by
Fintecs, working on the system relocation project for more than a year. A
further constraint was that no additional staff were available for the move
which was accomplished with existing personnel and taking into account natural
wastage of staff.

Says Tony Gratton, ‘Our Visual Documentation approach has paid off very
effectively for the Bank. Even thought the project is now completed and all
systems were moved successfully on time and within budget, we still maintain
the visual map. Indeed the bank’s own IT Operations staff have begun a new
project, a pure system project to absorb the systems that were relocated into
the bank’s general IT systems structure, and an important tool for them in
managing this further project is the visual map we produced – so it has
fulfilled the important function of knowledge transfer within the bank’s own
staff.’

‘A second project is also under way with the bank’s development staff
to rationalise the remaining systems. Fintecs visual approach helped everyone
understand the big picture and to launch the new project.’

About Fintecs
Founded in 2001, Fintecs is a Banking IT consultancy that combines
in-depth expertise in Banking and the Financial industry with a unique
approach to the visual documentation of systems, business processes and
people.

The Fintecs visual approach to IT documentation has been developed in
association with one of Europe’s leading banks. It is designed to help
financial institutions of all kinds to rediscover the value of their hardware
and software assets and to:-

· Transfer vital knowledge among staff
· Match IT systems more closely to the needs of Business
· Understand fully how business processes interact
· Plan future systems with confidence

Fintecs draws on a wealth of experience with all kinds of financial
institutions from private banking to trust administration including
specialities such as asset management for private and institutional clients.
Fintecs has carried out consultancy projects in countries throughout Europe as
well as in the US and Canada. Staff are English-French bilingual and have
extensive experience of the Swiss banking system.

Fintecs consultancy work has included business process analysis from
front-office to back, data flows, databases and a wide range of software
applications, with extensive experience of Project Management, Project
Implementation, and Systems Integration.